A soft blue glow, dressed in gold and jewels.
This pair of antique French perfume bottles is crafted from opaline glass, a semi-opaque hand-blown glass prized for its soft, milky luminosity. Opaline rose to favor under Napoleon and reached the height of its popularity during the Napoleon III era, between roughly 1850 and 1860, when French glasshouses produced it in colors from white and pink to this especially coveted robin's-egg blue.
Each bottle carries a swagged garland of gilt and enamel beading, hand-applied in a classic Victorian jeweled motif, centered on a small medallion with a ruby-red enamel accent. A fine gold band finishes the base of each. Both retain their original domed opaline stoppers, which sit perfectly in place, though one stopper has an internal break not visible once seated.
Pieces like these were made as scent bottles or dresser decanters, meant to sit on a vanity or dressing table as both a fragrance vessel and a decorative object in their own right, a tradition that made opaline glass a staple of elegant 19th-century French interiors. As with most pieces of this age, some gilt loss is visible in photos, a natural trace of these bottles' long history.
Tucked inside every set, a little something for first time Tavola customers — a hand-finished vintage passport notebook. Note the piece, the moment, the person you gave it to. One day these pieces will sit in someone else's hands — and they'll know it came from yours.
A soft blue glow, dressed in gold and jewels.
This pair of antique French perfume bottles is crafted from opaline glass, a semi-opaque hand-blown glass prized for its soft, milky luminosity. Opaline rose to favor under Napoleon and reached the height of its popularity during the Napoleon III era, between roughly 1850 and 1860, when French glasshouses produced it in colors from white and pink to this especially coveted robin's-egg blue.
Each bottle carries a swagged garland of gilt and enamel beading, hand-applied in a classic Victorian jeweled motif, centered on a small medallion with a ruby-red enamel accent. A fine gold band finishes the base of each. Both retain their original domed opaline stoppers, which sit perfectly in place, though one stopper has an internal break not visible once seated.
Pieces like these were made as scent bottles or dresser decanters, meant to sit on a vanity or dressing table as both a fragrance vessel and a decorative object in their own right, a tradition that made opaline glass a staple of elegant 19th-century French interiors. As with most pieces of this age, some gilt loss is visible in photos, a natural trace of these bottles' long history.
Tucked inside every set, a little something for first time Tavola customers — a hand-finished vintage passport notebook. Note the piece, the moment, the person you gave it to. One day these pieces will sit in someone else's hands — and they'll know it came from yours.
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